Key topics of nano-optics and plasmonics and their applications in research, lasers and solar energy were discussed at the 2012 Winter College on Optics conducted from February 6 to 17, 2012, at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste.
Chiara Bernardoni, at left above, wife of the late Professor Denardo, was present to congratulate 2012 Gallieno Denardo prize winner Selçuk Aktürk.
SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, was one of the eight organizations that sponsored the 2012 Winter College on Optics and other ICTP programs in order to fulfill the demands of researchers and students in developing nations.
In the annual event, 17 faculties from 9 nations instructed 113 students from 40 nations. Nikolay Zheludev from the University of Southampton, Mario Bertolotti from the University of Rome and SPIE Fellow Zohra Ben-Lakhdar from the University of Tunis were the Directors of the event.
New to the program in 2012 were practical experiments presented by SPIE Fellow Anna Consortini from the University of Firenze and Angela Guzman from CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida. During the event, SPIE offered free access to the attendees to use the SPIE Digital Library. SPIE Best Poster Awards were issued for works presented in the Laser, Atomic and Molecular Physics program.
Alberto Scarpettini from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Vivi Fauzia from the Universitas Indonesia and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia won the first place for their presentations ‘High Resolution Imaging Using Plasmonic Probes’ and ‘Enhancing Photocurrent on Organic Solar Cells by Gold Nanospheres,’ respectively. Jasna Dasoviæ from the Ruðer Boškoviæ Institute won the second place for the presentation titled ‘Time-Resolved and Time-Integrated Photoluminescence Analysis of Si Nanoparticles.’
Selçuk Aktürk from the Istanbul Technical University received the 2012 ICO/ICTP Gallieno Denardo Prize for his research on ultrashort optical pulses and nonlinear optics.